


Know Madness

by Darkrealmist



Series: Scroll of Origins [6]
Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Ambition, Animals, Card Games, Character Study, Drama, Familiars, Fantasy, Frogs, Gen, Gods, Insanity, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Kamigawa (Magic: The Gathering), Legends, Libraries, Magic, Manipulation, Murder, Poisoning, Sacrifice, School, Spirits, Wizards, Wordcount: 100-1.000, Wordcount: 100-500, Wordcount: Under 10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26512066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkrealmist/pseuds/Darkrealmist
Summary: The tale of Tomorrow, a kami most becoming Minamo’s duplicitous head archivist.
Series: Scroll of Origins [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805515





	Know Madness

Know Madness

Author’s Note: Enjoy the story and R&R.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of _Magic: The Gathering_.

Card Reference: <http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74447>

Summary:

The tale of Tomorrow, a kami most becoming Minamo’s duplicitous head archivist.

* * *

The history of Kamigawa runs rampant with the stories of great heroes and others of legendary status. Lands once trembled and worshipped the all-powerful daimyo, Konda. Jushi students mastered mystical arts at the Minamo School under the guidance of Sensei Hisoka and Lady Azami. Trees and fields of flowers grew wherever the monk, Azusa, passed. The rats bowed down to their lord, Marrow-Gnawer, and Akki poets recited praise of Zo-Zu the Punisher.

So begins the tale of Tomorrow, Azami’s Familiar.

…

Azami Ozu set down her tea.

An animal hopped on webbed toes onto the scroll she was reading. A frog with sickeningly slimy blue-yellow skin, bloated warts, and abnormally jagged plates coming off its back. Long black hair like that of a waterlogged corpse twisted freely on its head as though afloat a burbling river, washed in pale blue also surrounding the kanji-inscribed _ofuda_ swaying in the spirit’s midst.

She knew it was the poisonous variety.

Green breath respired out the mouths on the frog’s masked eyelids. It wore the faces of those wrecked by Azami’s unrepentant impulse for knowledge, the trusting triflers who croaked or were croaking in their cells after hazarding upon her truly obsessed character.

The masks may have been speculated to represent Azami’s mother and father, the near-drowned fevered woman she neglected for the library, and the military man who basically banished his daughter. Or perhaps they were sculpts of Kajiya or the two before him, students (now poor lunatics) the teacher had prodded toward Towazu, the kami told of in forbidden whispers as the Unspeakable.

Did the foul gas mean to evoke the marsh where she left Etsumi Urano in quicksand? The tainted mushroom salad she fed Atsuko Shimazaki, so the school could tap her for head archivist?

Where others would see horrifying crimes, Azami saw great advancement.

This was Azami’s very soul. The kami of her.

Peer through depths. Reach through mists. Sift through sands.

The madness is thyself.

Tomorrow stared at her; rather, Azami stared at herself.

“If I had to do it all over, I’d give up everything again.”


End file.
